Tag Archives: sewerage

Parliamwent has allowed the Government to borrow sh100b [US$ 52 million] for the Kampala Sanitation Program. The funds from the African Development Bank (AfDB) will be used to extend the sewerage network to serve at least 15% [the AfDB project description mentions 30%] of the city population from the current 7.5%, according to the committee on national economy.

The committee explained that funds will be used to rehabilitate and extend the existing 135km of sewerage pipelines in Kampala. Robert Sebunya, who presented the committee report, said: “A total of 30km of new sewer pipes will be laid, 10km unblocked, while 6.7km will be realigned.” He also added that some of the funds will be used to construct and operate the Nakivubo sewerage treatment works and construct a new plant.

The committee noted that the improvements would curtail water and sanitation related diseases and contribute to environmental protection of Lake Victoria. MPs, however, expressed concern that due to the poor planning of the city, the sewer line was a waste of resources as it could not be accessed by many citizens.

Opposition leader Ogenga Latigo (FDC) […] advised that more funds be allocated to emptying septic tanks to reduce the spillage into under- ground water. Okello Okello (UPC) demanded that the Ministry of Water and Environment provides a detailed plan of how the money would be spent otherwise, the funds risked being spent in feasibility studies like the rest of the money borrowed by the Government.

Water and environment minister Maria Mutagamba assured the MPs that the money would be put to good use.

Peru’s state-owned water and sewerage utility Sedapal, serving capital Lima and neighboring Callao, will raise water rates on companies that pollute beginning in January 2010. The rate hike will apply to companies that dump toxic waste into the sewerage system, which leads to greater deterioration in the network.

The announcement was made by the president of national sanitation authority Sunass, José Salazar. In 2008, Sunass said various industries were increasing the rate of deterioration in the sewerage system, but their rates were the same as domestic customers.

In conjunction with the national industries association (SNI), Sunass has completed the design of the new tariff system which includes rate increases for companies that do not invest in improving their wastewater treatment. In addition, firms that contaminate more will pay more.

Sedapal must now implement the software necessary to start using the new system.

Local development bank Cofide will provide small and medium-sized companies with up to 50% of the investment needed to improve wastewater treatment.

Around 1.5 million residents in Colombo, Sri Lanka’s economic and administrative center, will benefit from a large-scale wastewater management project funded by the Asian Development Bank (ADB).

ADB’s Board of Directors approved a $100-million loan package for the project, including $80 million from its ordinary capital resources (OCR) and $20 million from its concessional Asian Development Fund (ADF). The Sri Lanka Government will cover the remaining cost of $16.6 million.

The project has three components. The first involves the upgrading of sewerage infrastructure in Colombo. The second component will strengthen the capacity of the government and the municipal service provider, Colombo Municipal Council (CMC), to manage the assets and finances of the sector, monitor operations, ensure environmental regulatory compliance, and provide customer service. The last component will support project management and implementation.

A total of 6.7bn reais (US$3.4bn) is needed to provide 100% sanitation coverage in the 12 Brazilian cities selected to host matches during the 2014 World Cup, according to a study requested by NGO Instituto Trata Brasil (ITB).

The study showed the cities of Belo Horizonte (Minas Gerais), São Paulo, Salvador (Bahia) and Rio de Janeiro have the highest number of people with sewage collection services with 97.1%, 88.5%, 87.8% and 83.7% respectively.

Collection rates below 50% were reported in Porto Alegre (Rio Grande do Sul), Recife (Pernambuco) and Cuiabá (Mato Grosso) with 49.3%, 47.1% and 41.2% respectively. Manaus (Amazonas) and Natal (Rio Grande do Norte) came in with the lowest coverage of 35.0% and 21.3%.

Thames Water has launched an information campaign after a survey revealed almost half of its customers flush unsuitable things down the loo.

The campaign ‘Bin it – don’t block it‘ is an attempt to stop what the firm calls ‘sewer abuse’ and follows research by the company into what people believe can be thrown down a toilet.

According to the survey 41% customers flush something they shouldn’t down toilets and one in four women wrongly think sanitary items can go down the u-bend. [So far in 2009, Thames Water] has had to deal with 55,000 blockages in London and the Thames Valley, resulting in flooding to 7000 homes and gardens.

“The majority of blockages are caused by sewer abuse, when things like cooking fat, sanitary products and wet wipes are wrongly put down toilets and drains, often causing misery for thousands of people because they block sewers, leading in some cases to waste backing up into people’s homes.

[Part of the problem is caused by] confusing and misleading product labelling which encourages customers to flush unsuitable items, including toddler wipes and sanitary items.

[…] As well as raising awareness, Thames Water is currently working with the water industry and with trade associations to implement long-term solutions.

Zimbabwe has activated its national disaster response agency, the Civil Protection Unit (CPU), to counter the spread of cholera. […] The CPU is usually deployed in the wake of national disasters, such as floods and droughts. [It had been] mandated to provide clean water [with assistance from UNICEF and WHO], even though this was the responsibility of the state-owned Zimbabwe National Water Authority (ZINWA).

[…] The capital, Harare, including its central business district, has been without piped water for the past four days, while sewer bursts are being left unrepaired. […] ZINWA confirmed that it has been pumping untreated sewage into Harare’s water supply dam, Lake Chivero.

[S]hallow wells people have dug to get to water when the taps stopped running are being decontaminated; refuse, which has not been collected this year, will now be collected, the CPU said.

Residents of Nairobi’s Pumwani Estate, in the east of the capital, have lived with the foul smell of sewage for three years because a sewage line serving the estate bursts regularly, despite several attempts to repair it.

“We no longer stay indoors because of the smell, we make sure we are out of our homes as often as we can; in fact it is terrible at night because you have no choice but to sleep”, said resident, Fatuma Mohammed. “Our children are […] have regular coughs and vomiting; they have nowhere to play as the sewage is all over the place. […] Whenever we report to the city authorities that the sewer has burst again, they sometimes come and repair it, only for it to burst two or three days later, or sometimes they do not even come to check what the problem is. […] Just recently we tried to organise ourselves to hold a demonstration and the authorities sent riot police”.

Hi Nicola, I am a colleague of Moritz and one of my research fields is quantifying and characterising faecal slugde on a city-wide scale. The hyperlink to the FAQ project, Moritz refers to in his post leads you to a website with publications about the approach we have implemented in Kampala/Uganda and Hanoi/Vietnam. I could see the application of the latrine […]

Hi Elisabeth, No - I wasn't thinking about it for travelers (if you mean international travelers - although I suppose they might use it too), but anyone who is visiting a town and needs to find a loo. And as well as finding the facility in the first place, I was thinking more as a means to monitor the quality of service provided by the operators of publ […]

NEWSLETTER OF MARCH 2015 LINK TO NEWSLETTER With 28 May just three months away, we're unveiling the new slogan for 2015, giving you a sneak-peek at the MH Day POP-UP Exhibition Toolkit and sharing the latest MHM updates!

Dear Elisabeth, Thank you for the message on our board. We are more than happy to address all your queries and also welcome all future queries and suggestions from you. Regarding the overlap between Wikipedia’s and ours content, we try to compliment the work of Wikipedia rather than compete with them. Additionally most of our content are the direct results o […]

Hi, I find two issues shared here: i. On MHM: Attitudes towards Menstruation: while in some parts a celebration is done on onset of puberty and in other it is kept a secret. www.quora.com/Why-do-the-some-people-cel...berty-in-South-India community I have worked with different communities and experienced: 1. Raised MHM awareness through school/ Peer Educator […]

With the fact that nearly 35% of Delhi slum dwellers still practise open defecation, most of community and public toilets in the capital remains non-functional; the present scenario doesn’t seem to meet the goals of Delhi Master Plan for making the city Open Defecation Free (ODF) by 2015. In this article, Ajay Sinha, Chief Operating Officer, Feedback Foundat […]

We have chosen the winners of our Picturing CLTS photo competition. Thank you to everyone who submitted photos. It was great to see such diverse depictions of CLTS in action and of many related aspects like handwashing, inclusive WASH and monitoring.